1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to electrical connectors and, more particularly, to an outrigger edge connector for use in connecting a daughter printed circuit board to a mother printed circuit board.
2. Prior Art
U.S. Pat. No. 4,932,888 to Senor discloses an electrical connector with a second housing that partially fits inside a first housing and has fingers to contact a side of a printed circuit board. U.S. Pat. No. 4,806,110 to Lindeman discloses a circuit board assembly with a connector fixedly attached to a circuit board. U.K. Patent Application 2163305 to Teradyne Inc. discloses an upper daughter board connector element fixedly connected to a daughter board that is inserted into a lower backplane connector element. U.S. Pat. No. 4,392,700 to Showman et al. discloses a cam actuated zero insertion force connector with a plug connector mounted on an edge of a daughter board that is inserted into a receptacle assembly. U.S. Pat. No. 4,869,672 to Andrews Jr. discloses a dual purpose card edge connector that can receive either of two different types of printed circuit boards. Other relevant art includes U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,981,449; 4,907,975; 5,024,609; 4,298,237; 4,996,766; and 4,934,961.
Problems exists in the art in that there is a need for a new system and method for connecting a daughter printed circuit board to a mother printed circuit board that has a relatively large number of contacts, can accept different types of daughter printed circuit boards, can be connected with different types of edge card socket connectors, and can do so in a limited amount of space.